Misheard lyrics "mondegreen" the holidays

CAROLERS BEWARE: If your lyrics involve a cruel reindeer named Olive, you may be at risk for some major embarrassment

Posted: Sunday, December 11, 2005

"Chipmunks roasting on an open fire ..."

Wait. That's not right.

That is, as long as you're trying to sing the holiday carol "Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire."

If you've heard of - or accidentally sung - the chipmunk version, then you've used what's called a "mondegreen."

Unlike a malaprop, an unintended misuse of a word, or a sniglet, a made-up word describing a humorous occurrence, a mondegreen is a lyrical faux pas that often conjures an amusing mental picture.

Writer Sylvia Wright coined the word in a 1954 Atlantic article. Wright explained how for years she mistakenly sang the Scottish folk lyrics, "They had slain the Earl of Moray and laid him on the green" as "They had slain the Earl of Moray and Lady Mondegreen."

She whimsically defined such bloopers as "mondegreens."

Many people acquire their mondegreen as children and may continue singing a song that way for years, said Gavin Edwards, who penned the books "Deck the Halls with Buddy Holly," "'Scuse Me While I Kiss This Guy' and Other Misheard Lyrics," and "'He's Got the Whole World in His Pants' and More Misheard Lyrics."

It's not entirely the faulty singer's fault.

"Lots of singers don't articulate very well," Edwards said.

Such a thing happened to Gene Roberts.

The Savannah man remembers as a child getting a nudge from his mother after she noticed his innocent twist on the church hymn "Bringing in the Sheaves."

"I would sing it, 'Bringing in the Sheep,'" he said chuckling. "It made plenty of sense to me as a preschooler."

Roberts, now an associate pastor of music and outreach at Winsdor Forest Baptist Church, keeps his eyes trained on the sheet music.

Even then, he makes mistakes.

"I'll sing 'Lord' instead of 'Christ' or I'll make something plural that was singular or vice versa," he said. "I'll say 'sorry' to the choir and then circle the word real big in my hymnal."

Sandy McCloud remembers being on the hecklers' side of the fence.

"A girlfriend we used to call 'Stinky,' she used to think that the line 'Stop in the name of love, before you break my heart,' was 'Stop in the name of the law, before you take my car.'"

Years later when McCloud was working as a radio disc jockey, she retold the story over the Atlanta airwaves during an occasional program on corrupted lyrics.

The show always brought plenty of calls from listeners with embarrassing stories.

"Of course you're always embarrassed, because you're singing along until a person looks over at you like you're a fool," she said.

While some mondegreens are unintentional, the result can be so funny it sticks.

That's when traditional songs begin to take on a new life.

"It's part of folk music to take an existing melody and put whole new words to it, and it's certainly part of folk music to parody other songs," said Hank Weisman, president of the Savannah Folk Music Society.

With song lyrics so easily found online, Weisman has discovered some of the folk songs he thought he knew actually had a slightly different official version.

"But that's OK. Songs evolve," he said.

For now, carolers who prefer to avoid years of embarrassment may be wise to check their lyrics against a song book.

Otherwise, like Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer, they too will go down in Listerine.